Connect Station CS100 stores and manages pictures in the home

Canon unveils the Connect Station CS100

First of the years trade shows is the Consumer Electronics Show, CES, in Las Vegas and this year Canon has launched a new kind of product; the Connect Station CS100.

While storage** is not new for Canon this new device is all about simplifying the process of moving pictures and video from camera to the hard disk. Then once stored pictures can be printed, shared on social media, displayed on your TV or even posted to your Irista gallery.

The Connect Station CS100 provides a multitude of connectivity capabilities, near field communication (NFC), USB, WiFi or by putting your SD or CF cards in the Connect Station directly. Connect Station is not limited to Canon cameras and camcorders, most of the cameras in the market use the EXIF standard for storing pictures on memory cards so they should work fine. Of course JEPG images are supported but so are Canon RAW .CR2 images too.

Are you the Connect Station buyer?

Connect Station CS100

I’m pretty sure that the target user for the Connect Station is not the professional photographer, so for the consumers – mostly with compact cameras smartphones and tablets it offers a solution for off-loading pictures from the camera and making it easy to show on TV. Once loaded in to the Connect Station pictures & movies can be browsed by date or by event.

I think the concept is interesting, certainly if it helps folks who are less happy to use a computer to manage and store their pictures it offers something useful. However the apparent lack of backup capability means I do have a worry about what happens when the 1TB disk dies. Maybe the link with Irista is part of the strategy to sell cloud storage too.

In addition to the novel Connect Station, CES was the launch point for a group of new PowerShot and IXUS cameras too.

PowerShot SX 530 HS

PowerShot SX530 HS